


little lion man

by TheLittleTrashCat



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Angry Logic | Logan Sanders, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxiety | Virgil Sanders Angst, Apologies, Arguing, Caring Logic | Logan Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Angst, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders Needs a Hug, Crying, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders Angst, Deceit | Janus Sanders Angst, Depression, Family Feels, Feels, Forgiveness, Gen, Getting to Know Each Other, Healing, Heavy Angst, Hugs, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Insecure Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Kidnapping, Mental Breakdown, Minor Violence, Morality | Patton Sanders Angst, Morality | Patton Sanders Tries, Self-Acceptance, Self-Discovery, Self-Harm, Sympathetic Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Sympathetic Deceit | Janus Sanders, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:28:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25330123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLittleTrashCat/pseuds/TheLittleTrashCat
Summary: Roman has spent his life in a slow downward spiral, and he only had himself to blame for it.He was stuck, his own cowardice preventing him from the meaningful relationships he desired. He was too scared of rejection to reach out from the walls he was built, trapped in the prison of his own mind with nothing but the bottle he had put his emotions into.When Roman was honest to himself, he wasn't okay. But he wasn't sure when, or hell, if, he'd be able to share that.Maybe one day has always been what he's thought. But the day was always far off and distant.However, that day may come sooner then he expected. The journey would hurt. But it would be worth it, in the end, to finally get on the road to recovery, and to finally find the joy he's been missing all his life.
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders & Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Everyone, Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders & Logic | Logan Sanders, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders & Deceit | Janus Sanders, Deceit | Janus Sanders & Logic | Logan Sanders
Comments: 10
Kudos: 57





	little lion man

**Author's Note:**

> the title and all the lyric are from the song[Little Lion Man by Mumford and Sons](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxH0k6Go0hM)

|

○

_Weep for yourself, my man,_

_You'll never be what is in your heart_

○

|

Roman sighed, staring up at his ceiling, unblinking. He could faintly hear the others bickering downstairs, arguing over what movie to watch. His fingers twitched as he remembered how he had declined the offer to attend the movie night a mere ten minutes ago, breezily stating that he had oh so much work to do, and he'd love to, Patton, maybe next time?

Patton had sounded so _disappointed,_ sounded so sad when he replied back. And when he had asked Roman whether or not he wanted to go, his hope had been crushed so easily. Crushed by Roman's failure to actually hang out and get to know people on a personal level.

People, who he had to live with and interact with nearly every day of his life.

Roman scrubbed a hand over his face, letting his fingers tangle into his hair. Oh, he was so _stupid._ He was overreacting, he didn't need to be this way. So what if he wanted to get closer to the other sides? So what if he longed to be held despite how he clearly broadcasted that _he_ would be the one doing the holding.

So what.

The others, they were close with each other. He would have to be _even more of_ a fool to not see it. 

He tried his best, oh try he did, but he could never reciprocate the open honesty that the others put out so easily. He didn't know how.

Roman blew out a breath, letting his arm fall across his eyes and block them from the bright light on his ceiling. It provided relief from the pounding that had been behind his eyes the entire day, and granted him blessed darkness. 

Roman supposed the headache was caused by a mix of dehydration and sleep deprivation, but he wasn't a doctor. He knew nothing about medicine.

And why would he? He was a so-called "prince," and princes didn't need to know how to heal themselves, they had healers or doctors for that. 

At least, he acted like a prince. They were brave and confident, right? They were usually knights, too, and knights were exceptionally brave. They were heros. Always there to save the damsel in distress, which was usually a princess, and they would skip away, happily ever after..

Roman wondered if it was possible to both the knight and the damsel in distress. Bitterly, he thought not.

Being a knight required bravery and courage, and Roman was a coward. He was far from a damsel, either. He was simply...in distress. 

Roman snorted softly, moving his arm to flop beside him as he stared at the ceiling once more.

He wasn't sure why he was such a coward. It would be so easy to open up and admit that he wasn't as flamboyant as he was perceived, and he could easily stutter through whispering of actions that left him red eyed and tear tracked.

But it wasn't. 

It wasn't easy, because Roman feared. He feared so much that he could never be a prince or a knight or anything of that sort. It simply wasn't for him. A quivering scholar's assistant, maybe?

Roman felt his lips twitch into a humorless smile as he snapped his fingers, switching his light off and changing his pajamas. He crawled under the covers, tugging his blankets over him as if they would shield him from the ugly truth.

The truth that the others wouldn't care. He was already ignored a good portion of the time. Would telling them how pathetic he was acting actually change anything? No, they would laugh at him, tell him off, and go back to what they were doing. 

And there would still be moments where his heart would pound for no reason and without relief, where tears would burn his eyes and he felt like vomiting .

Those moments that he hated, because they were only a reminder.

A reminder of just how stupid he was.

A reminder that he could never, and would never, be able to truly explain how he felt.

And it was fine. Roman didn't _need_ to explain to the others how he felt. He was absolutely fine with dealing with his emotions by himself. He had been doing it for his entire life. He had pulled himself out of self harm when he was younger all by himself, and he had been clean for years.

So what if he put on a persona? He just didn't want to get hurt. He couldn't be seen as weak, the other sides were like predators. Deceit and Remus would use it against him, Virgil would tease him and Logan would tell him how illogical he was being. He couldn't expect the others to read his mind. Them not knowing anything was his choice. He was the one who chose his fate.

And he knew. He knew that he couldn't expect the others to pick up on his minute little differences in his behavior. People changed all the time. He was an actor. If he wanted to be the one to be held, he had to act like it. He couldn't just expect them to know his secret desires if they were secret, but the thought of actually _telling any_ of them made his heart race.

Roman was his own worst enemy, truly. He was the cause of his own strife, and he only had himself to blame. If he wanted something, he had to go and get it. He couldn’t spend his whole life wishing for someone to suddenly realize what he was going through. Life didn’t work like that. 

He wanted to do so many things, wanted so much, but he never put any effort into making it happen. It was his own fault. If he really wanted to have something so bad, then he needed to take initiative and make it happen. It was what he pushed Thomas to do, he was dreams and passion, but he never did that for himself, did he? He had dreams of being close to the other sides and finally not feeling so tired all the time, but he never chased _those_ dreams. Acting, theater, everything that he loved, he would chase to the end of the world and then some, but when it came to personal relations, Roman had no drive to continue. He wished, _god_ he wished he had that same drive he did with everything else, but he just...didn’t.

If he was honest with himself, the answer as to why he felt this way was fairly obvious, but he always met that thought, that consideration with excuse after excuse because even though all the signs were there, he couldn’t possibly be right.

Roman was making excuses so that he could transform his feelings into excuses that would stop him from having to put in any effort into life, but wasn’t that what he wanted? To not have to put in any effort, to simply exist and enjoy himself without the reality of life looming behind him at every step? His own mind was like the ocean, enjoyable at the surface where you were distracted by fun activities, but the deeper you ventured the colder and darker and more scary it became. And if the mind was an ocean, then the other sides were deep sea divers and Roman was a surfer, riding the waves of distraction after distraction while the others explored their own mind and being, discovering reasoning behind actions and feelings and basking in the joy of truly knowing oneself. 

Roman wished he knew what he truly wanted. He wished he ventured into his own mind at least once in a while, so that he could find a way to undo his thoughts and feelings, but knowing oneself was hard and Roman’s greatest flaw was that he didn’t like when things hurt. He didn’t like pain, because it reminded him how bad he coped with everything. Words from months ago would still sting, but he didn’t have the courage to admit that the words pained him when they were said. He could change who he was out of the blue, that wasn’t how it worked. He couldn’t simple up and undo everything he was, how would everyone else take that? If he became a completely different person when he discovered himself, would the other sides even like that person, or would he become hated? He knew most of them hated change, and he couldn’t bare the thought of hurting them more than he already had and did.

Roman spent so much time worrying about what would come out of knowing himself in and out that he never spent the time to actually do it. He was too worried that he would change, too scared of _nothing_ changing with his knowledge, and if the knowledge wasn’t worth it, he didn’t want to suffer for nothing.

And as Roman layed there in the darkness of his room, mind swirling with thoughts as he pondered himself for the first time that year, he realized that this was the closest to knowing himself he would get. This reflection, this was as far as he could go. This was as much as he was willing to do. He didn’t want to go deeper into the water, because the dark depths and unknowns scared him, and that was as much as he was willing to admit. All he could handle doing was thinking about how he was a coward, and nothing more.

Though if he was honest with himself, he was perfectly capable of knowing himself. He was learning more about himself everytime he thought about why he didn’t know himself very well, and he wasn’t sure how that made him feel. Roman supposed he was happy that the tidbits of knowledge he gathered about himself didn’t change much, but there were still things he was scared about thinking about simply because they hurt too much.

In the end, none of it truly mattered, because every day he was the same as always, seemingly never faltering. He was too scared to tell the others anything, and that was his downfall. He was too scared of rejection, of a bad reaction. He could argue with someone, and he wouldn’t feel _sad,_ but the idea and reality of rejection without anger wasn’t one he liked to dwell on for very long.

So he waited. He was secretly, ashamedly waiting for the day someone would notice his strife despite knowing it would never happen. But he also waited for the day he could finally stop being so scared and admit what he was feeling. But that day was far, far off - almost unreachable, in the distant horizon and blurred by both the distance and a fog of doubt. It seemed impossible to reach.

Yet he still waited. Waited for the day to come.

Because after all these years, and despite all of his fear, he still wanted to tell them.

He just wasn’t ready.


End file.
